Personal computers (PCs) typically include a software media player that permits a user to play back various forms of multimedia file formats such as, for example, DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), CDDA (Compact Disc-Digital Audio), MPEG (Motion Pictures (Coding) Experts Group) video, MP3 (MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer III), WMA (Windows® Media Audio 8), WAV (Windows® Wave), WMV (Windows® Media Video) and the like. Examples of such software media players include RealNetwork's Real One player, Apple Computer's QuickTime and Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
In addition to playing back different media formats on a PC, media players often perform other functions including, for example, copying CD tracks onto the PC hard disc in various file formats (e.g., WAV, WMA, MP3) and organizing the files into a desired playback order, copying music to a portable device, burning an audio or data CD, and retrieving and displaying various media information or attributes about the music that a user plays on the PC. Music attributes can include information such as, for example, CD titles, album art, composers, artists, biographies, discographies, musical genre, album recording date, reviews, related news, related artists, track titles, and the like.
Music attribute information for many CDs is available online through various Internet database services. Thus, media players executing on PC's or other computers that have Internet access can readily obtain music attributes for a wide range of CD music. For example, when a media player plays a CD or rips a CD track and encodes it as a WMA or MP3 file, the media player might also access an Internet database service and download music attributes for the entire CD or the ripped CD track. Music attributes for ripped CD tracks can be encoded into WMA and MP3 files as metadata tags. Therefore, the music attributes travel with the encoded files and are available for display on a PC and various other remote devices to which the files can be transferred.
Media players on PCs can also store the music attributes retrieved from an Internet database service in a media library/database on the PC. In general, music attributes stored on an Internet database or in a media library/database on a PC are identifiable or associated with a particular CD through a CD identifier called a table of contents (TOC). The TOC is not stored on the CD, but is instead a calculation of start and stop times for the music tracks on the CD. The start and stop times for music tracks on a CD are measured to within 1/77th of a second when a CD is inserted into a CD player. Thus, virtually all CDs are uniquely identifiable by their TOC. The TOC identifier can be used to associate music attributes for a CD in various environments, such as an Internet database or a PC media library/database. Thus, a media player on a PC can maintain a media library that includes music attributes for various CDs associated by CD TOCs. When a CD is played on the PC, the media player can display music attributes from the media library that are associated through the CD TOC. If the CD TOC is not available in the media library, the media player can access an Internet database service and make a request to have the music attributes downloaded based on the CD TOC.
Various remote and/or portable CD-capable devices (e.g., car stereos, hand-held portable CD players) can play conventional CD, CD-R (CD recordable), and CD-RW (CD rewritable) discs, as well as MP3 and WMA-encoded music files stored on CD-R/RWs or other storage media such as SD cards, compact flash cards, and PCMCIA flash cards. Such remote CD-capable devices are also generally able to display music attributes stored as metadata tags in MP3 and WMA-encoded music files. Therefore music attributes are available for display on remote CD devices if CD tracks have been ripped to MP3 or WMA files. However, music attributes are not available for display on remote CD devices if CD tracks are played directly from a CD. This is because music attributes are not stored on the CDs themselves and because remote CD-capable devices do not maintain updated media libraries containing CD TOCs and associated music attributes.
Accordingly, a need exists for a way to provide music attributes for CD tracks when CDs are played on remote CD-capable devices.